


Fingers In The Fridge (And Other Dramatic Moments In The Life Of Sherlock Holmes)

by greymantledlady



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angry John, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Apologies, Body parts in the fridge, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Fighting, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gentle Kissing, Getting Together, John Apologises, Kissing, M/M, Making Up, POV Sherlock Holmes, Post-Episode: The Abominable Bride, Post-Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Post-Season/Series 03, Sexual Tension, Sherlock Being Tiny, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Tea, Virgin Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-08 16:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8852272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greymantledlady/pseuds/greymantledlady
Summary: ‘Let go,’ Sherlock says dully. He’s shivering, and he can’t stop it, but he holds himself stiffly. ‘Let go, please.’John’s eyes are direct and earnest and slightly stunned, fixed on Sherlock’s face, and he takes a rasp of breath and looks down at his fingers on Sherlock’s arm as though he doesn’t know how they came to be there. Slowly, very slowly, he peels them away, and Sherlock tries to stop shivering and tries not to notice how cold the place on his arm feels, now that John’s fingers aren’t covering it. He looks down at his hands, and feels his face twisting painfully.John is still there, still standing with set shoulders and bunched muscles, as though he's rooted in place. And his eyes are still on Sherlock's face, and suddenly Sherlock can't bear it, can't bear it, and he shoves roughly past John and stalks to his bedroom and slams the door viciously closed behind him.





	1. Chapter 1

John is angry with him.

' _Bloody hell!'_ he shouts. 'Bloody  _hell_ , Sherlock!'

Sherlock is rather angry, too, but more than angry, he’s afraid. Because John is angry – John is really, really angry, and last time John was this angry, he went and  _got married._  To  _someone else_.

(Not that it could ever have been Sherlock, of course, of  _course_  it couldn’t, Sherlock knows that very well by now and he’s not stupid and he’s not supposed to have thoughts like that; he’s tried deleting them at the source but they won’t stay deleted and he really needs to work on that.)

'Can we go a single day – a _single bloody day_  - without some sort of body part in the fridge?' John says, low and cold and terrifying.

Last time John was this furious, he had gone and got married to an  _assassin_ , who’d shot Sherlock through the chest and then done a number of other Very Bad things until she and her unborn child were killed trying to escape Mycroft’s special ops team. John had come back to Baker Street, after that, and if he wasn’t exactly heartbroken over losing his wife, at that stage, he had taken the loss of his baby like a blow to the gut.

And Sherlock has no idea, absolutely no idea how to help someone grieve for their baby, and he knows he’ll probably say the wrong thing if he opens his mouth, so he’s been trying not to say anything too much at all. And John sometimes stomps furiously through the flat and slams doors, and sometimes he goes out for long, long walks on his own and comes back with a stone-set face and red-rimmed eyes. But sometimes, too, he has almost seemed happy, sitting in his armchair and reading out inanities from the paper to make Sherlock snort, or coming home from crime scenes with his eyes sparkling and his face alive.

Sherlock would very much rather that John be happy and sparkling, not angry.

'Fingers.  _Fingers._ Bloody  _fingers_  in the carrot box,' John pants, and he turns away and walks over to the wall and bangs his head down on it.

The worst thing is that this time, Sherlock doesn’t even know  _why_  John is so angry at him. All he had done was put a few fingers in a carrot box in the fridge, sealed and everything, and he thought that was what John  _wanted_ him to do to avoid cross-contamination, and there’s certainly been worse things in there than fingers _._ Besides, it was for an  _experiment_.

There must be something else, something that he’s missed, because John really shouldn’t be this angry just for fingers. And now John’s head is bowed down, both his hands braced against the damasked wallpaper. Breathing heavily, shaking a little, muscles tensing and jerking on the backs of his hands.

Sherlock licks his lips, because he’s  _scared_ , scared that he’s done something again, something huge and devastating that he hasn’t realised yet. Something that will be the last straw for John and make him go away again, away from Sherlock and Baker Street, and Sherlock  _can’t_ let that happen, he  _can’t_ , not if there’s anything he can do to fix it.

‘John,’ he says, very quietly, speaking to John’s back. ‘John. I’m sorry.’ He’s not sure what it is that he’s apologising for, but if there’s a chance it might work, he's going to try.

John straightens, and turns around slowly. Sherlock holds his breath and stands very still, waiting to see what John will do next.

John’s lips are pressed together tightly. ‘Alright,’ he says. ‘Alright,’ and fear clenches tight in Sherlock’s chest.

‘I  _am_  sorry,’ he says again, trying to keep the note of desperation from his voice. ‘Really.’

‘Sherlock.’ John’s voice sounds more normal, now, but he still looks dangerous. His jaw is doing the soldier thing where it clenches up and goes very square.

Is that a good thing or not? Sherlock realises that his own fingers are clenching and unclenching at his sides. He can’t say anything more, not until John gives him some sort of clue about how he’s messed up this time.

‘ _I’m_ sorry,’ John says.

Sherlock freezes. What – why is  _John_  apologising? Maybe it's sarcasm. Biting sarcasm.

‘Sherlock, it’s fine,’ John says, and there doesn't  _seem_  to be any sarcasm there. ‘You don’t need to apologise. This time, anyway. I overreacted and I’m sorry, okay?’

‘But,’ Sherlock says. ‘You were angry. Really angry. You – you were...' he trails off, hoping his voice doesn’t sound too small and fearful.

John walks very deliberately to his chair and sits down. 'Sit,' he says, and points to Sherlock's chair, and Sherlock has the distinct feeling that to disobey John right now would be a Bit Not Good. So he sits down, softly, and waits for John to say something.

John's expression grows slightly less dangerous, although still not precisely  _happy_  as such. Sherlock breathes quietly, glancing at John out of the corner of his eyes. He's not quite sure if it would be best to make direct eye contact or not, but it seems safest not to.

John sighs, an odd sort of sigh that's really more like a groan, and scrubs his hands over his face. 'Look,' he says, 'look, Sherlock. Just relax, okay? Stop looking so scared you're going to say the wrong thing, or upset me, or make me angry, because it's going to happen anyway, sooner or later, and I can take it. I'm not that fragile.'

It's as though Sherlock’s brain-mouth connection is glitching or something, because what he  _should_  be doing is agreeing with whatever John says, but instead he blurts without thinking, 'It's not that!'

Stupid.  _Stupid._

John frowns, and Sherlock cringes inwardly. 'Well - what is it, then?' John says.  ‘All this being quiet and not insulting me and letting me win all the arguments? It's starting to get weird.'

Weird.

Weird is bad. Weird is another thing that might make John decide to leave. Sherlock's been  _trying_ , he's been trying so hard to keep John happy, and now John thinks it's 'weird'?

'I just – ' Sherlock says, frustrated, and stops because his tongue gets tangled.

'Hm?' John says, stern. 'What is it, Sherlock?' It’s his  _don't-lie-to-me_  tone.

'I just don't want – don’t want you to leave again, alright?' Sherlock snaps out, and he rises to his feet in a swift move and turns his face away from John. God, he sounds so pathetic and  _needy_  and his face is hot and he really,  _really_ hopes he hasn't ruined everything.

'Oh,' says John, and then, ' _Oh._ '

'Happy now?' Sherlock can't help saying miserably, and he goes over to the window and looks out so he doesn't have to see what's happening on John's too-expressive face.

He can hear John moving. Indecision, at first, but then John's steps come up quietly behind Sherlock and  _what now?_

John clears his throat; rocks once on his heels.

'I think you should know,' John says, 'that I'm not actually planning to leave again.'

Sherlock snorts. He can't help it, and it comes out hard and angry-sounding. 'That's what you think now,' he says bitterly, swinging round to face John again, and now the words have started, he can't stop them, harsh and cutting and a little too loud. 'You're grieving, and lonely, and things are comfortable and familiar here. And then in a bit, when you feel better and you've  _got over it_ , you'll start again with the girlfriends and the dating, and you'll find someone else again, and you'll – you'll go,  _again_ , and...'

He trails off with a quiver, much too late, reviewing what he's just said with a detached, fascinated sort of horror. This is the end of everything, then. There's no way that John will ever forgive this. And because he knows there's nothing he can do now that could possibly worsen the situation, Sherlock looks despairingly back into John's face.

John doesn't look angry.

John looks  _stricken_. John’s mouth opens, and closes, and then opens and closes again. His hand comes out in a strange reaching movement, but Sherlock flinches back like a wild wounded thing. John’s hand drops.

‘ _God,_  Sherlock,’ John croaks, and what the hell is that supposed to mean? Sherlock hunches in on himself, starting to turn away, but then John’s hand is gripping tight on his arm, keeping him there.

‘Let go,’ Sherlock says dully. He’s shivering, and he can’t stop it, but he holds himself stiffly. ‘Let go, please.’

John’s eyes are direct and earnest and slightly stunned, fixed on Sherlock’s face, and he takes a rasp of breath and looks down at his fingers on Sherlock’s arm as though he doesn’t know how they came to be there. Slowly, very slowly, he peels them away, and Sherlock tries to stop shivering and tries not to notice how cold the place on his arm feels, now that John’s fingers aren’t covering it. He looks down at his hands, and feels his face twisting painfully.

John is still there, still standing with set shoulders and bunched muscles, as though he's rooted in place. And his eyes are still on Sherlock's face, and suddenly Sherlock can't bear it,  _can't bear it_ , and he shoves roughly past John and stalks to his bedroom and slams the door viciously closed behind him.

* * *

Sherlock stays in his room all afternoon. He's not  _sulking._ But John is out there in the flat, and he feels too sore and humiliated and worried to face John just yet, and there are no interesting cases on at the moment that would require him to come out of hiding, and so he stays in his room, lying on the edge of his bed so as not to disturb the arrangement of petri dishes in which he's growing moss at different rates.

He gets bored of not-sulking after a while, because there are too many disorganised thoughts in his head, messy and  _feeling-y_  and un-indexable, and they're making his throat and head ache in a horrid dull sort of way. He rolls off the bed and folds up on the ground by the window, tugging over an old copy of the  _Beekeepers Quarterly_  that has ended up spreadeagled open under his bed.

It's a good magazine, interesting, and it should distract him, but it doesn't. The words sort of dance and blur together, and all he can see is John - John's eyes, so earnest and  _looking_ at him, and it's not fair, it isn't fair! He hurls the  _Beekeepers Quarterly_  at the wall in a fit of passion, and hunches himself up in a wedge by the windowsill. The wallpaper is curling a very little bit, right underneath the ledge, and so he scratches at it and savagely peels off a big strip, and then another.

He's going for the biggest strip yet when John knocks at the door.

* * *

'Sherlock,' John says through the door. Sherlock can hear the little shifting sounds he makes. He hunches down further into himself, because he's definitely not going to go and open the door for John.

'Sherlock, can I come in?' John asks quietly.

Sherlock grunts, and it's meant to be a 'no', but John seems to take it as a 'yes', because he turns the handle and pushes the door open and steps in the gap, stopping just inside the door. Sherlock gazes coldly out the window, ignoring him.

'I brought you tea,' John says, and then, perhaps emboldened by the fact that Sherlock hasn't yet thrown him out, he walks hesitantly across the room and stands behind Sherlock.

Sherlock sniffs, a comprehensive, haughty sort of sniff that is intended to express his complete disdain for  _tea_ and  _John_  and anything else that John has brought to offer him. But he slides his eyes furtively sideways to see if John has actually brought him tea, and it turns out that he has, a big steaming mug of it. Unfortunately, John has brought  _two_ mugs, one for himself as well, which means he's planning to stay for a while, and perhaps  _talk_  about it.

'Go away,' Sherlock says, to be contrary, because he doesn't really want John to go away. It's confusing, because he had been so sure that John was going to storm out after he said –  _that_  to him, but John hadn't stormed out. He hadn't even got angry after that, and Sherlock hates it because he doesn't know what to expect, now. So he scowls and says, 'Go away, John.'

John doesn't. If anything, John looks relieved to hear Sherlock speak. He sits carefully down on the edge of the bed, holding out Sherlock's mug. 'Here,' he says, 'Take it. It's Earl Grey.'

Sherlock likes Earl Grey, so he reaches out, still not looking at John, and takes it. The mug is hot, and his fingers brush against John's as he transfers his hold to the handle; and it's as though the light touch unlocks something big and frantic inside him, and he starts babbling and can't stop. 'I'm sorry. John. For what I – said. Earlier. Really. I – I don't know what I was thinking.' That's what people say, isn't it? They  _didn't know what they were thinking_. Not good enough, coming from someone who has built their life around  _thinking_. He rips viciously at the torn wallpaper, glancing very quickly at John to see if he's angry yet.

John's eyes are squeezed painfully shut, his fingers clenched around his mug. He breathes out once, harshly, and then says, 'Stop. Apologising _._  Just – stop, Sherlock.' He opens his eyes, and looks at Sherlock, and then sets his mug down on Sherlock's bedside table with a decisive little click. ' _God._  Look, I – I want to say something. Just to you. Is that alright?'

'What is it?' Sherlock's voice comes out very small.

'I want you to know that... There isn't going to be any more of that, okay? The girlfriends and - dating. Not right now, not ever.' John's voice and eyes are very steady now, and he's leaning forward, his hands clasped loosely between his knees, his gaze fixed on Sherlock's face. 'I don't know why, or – or what. I mean. This is all kinds of messed up, I suppose, and I don’t know if you want to hear this, but. Please let me say this, Sherlock.’ And then John reaches out as though he can’t help himself, and fleetingly touches Sherlock’s cheek with one calloused finger, soft as a whisper, a promise. His voice is very low and gentle, when he says, ‘Sherlock, will you let me say it?’

Sherlock swallows hard, because it _feels_ – everything feels full of weight, the very air between them still, momentous. He swallows, and watches his own hand flex on his lap, cramping and uncramping nervously, and hears his own voice say, ‘Y-yes.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Previous:_
> 
> _And then John reaches out as though he can’t help himself, and fleetingly touches Sherlock’s cheek with one calloused finger, soft as a whisper, a promise. His voice is very low and gentle, when he says, ‘Sherlock, will you let me say it?’_
> 
> _Sherlock swallows hard, because it feels – everything feels full of weight, the very air between them still, momentous. He swallows, and watches his own hand flex on his lap, cramping and uncramping nervously, and hears his own voice say, ‘Y-yes.’_

John looks up at him. There’s something like hope in his eyes – Sherlock feels an odd flush of glad warmth at that, that John can look hopeful, despite the grey of his hair, the way his eyes are wrinkled at the corners as though they have _seen_ too much, these past months. He watches John, waits.

‘Thank you,’ John says quietly. ‘The thing I wanted to say – God, I should have said it to you years ago. I’m so sorry – so bloody _sorry_ , Sherlock.’

John takes a deep breath, rubs his face briefly with his hand. ‘I was so afraid of the truth for so long,’ he says, ‘but – but. I’m not going to lie to you anymore, and if this is going to mean that – you need me to go, I will take that consequence. But I need to say this.’

Sherlock stares at him, hardly daring to breathe. He wishes that John would look back at him; and something wild and free and wondering is beating hard in his chest.

Then John – John is meeting Sherlock’s eyes again, direct and earnest and full of something that Sherlock doesn’t know how to name. And John says, soft and clear and shattering, ‘I love you, Sherlock. I’m _in_ love with you, and I have been for years, and I think I probably always will be.’

 Sherlock’s throat closes. He’s looking – _looking_ at John, looking and looking and staring – and John’s eyes are so blue but so dark at the same time – and Sherlock’s mouth keeps opening and closing without anything coming out – and he can’t stop blinking, blinking.

Then John bows his head, breaking his gaze, head drooping. And just like that Sherlock’s voice comes back, spilling out words locked in the core of him for so long. ‘John, _John_ ,’ he croaks, ‘I do too – John, I love you too, I love you, I love you,’ and he’s grasping frantically at his hair, anchoring onto it with his fingers as he spins away.

* * *

Sherlock’s hands are shaking. John. Impossible – _John loves him_. Stocky snub-nosed beautiful John Watson, everything Sherlock has ever wanted in every way.

John John _John_. It’s always John.

And John’s standing right there – just standing, patient, waiting, after a first, sharp, aborted little move towards Sherlock. John’s head is still bowed.

Sherlock sucks in a harsh biting breath; makes himself go still, forces his hands down from his hair. 'John?' he gets out, and it’s hesitant and tiny and sounds like a question, shameful. childish. It doesn’t matter _._ The answer is always John.

John’s head comes up; he’s looking  _up_  at Sherlock, and by the rules of psychology that should be an imbalance of power with John at a disadvantage and Sherlock at an advantage because of his superior height, but it's – not. John's gaze is earnest, steady, grave; Sherlock trembles and blinks, fingers biting at the palms of his hands.

'Sherlock?' John's voice is so quiet. The beginnings of a smile are tugging at the corners of his mouth, joyous, _happy_. Sherlock licks his lips. His brain is a great spinning furry of confusion, and it shouldn't be a good feeling  _at all_. He’s not sure why he doesn't mind. It must be something to do with endorphins. Hormones. Something.

And – and then.

Then John is moving, fast, battle reflexes and set jaw, reaching up and grabbing Sherlock's shoulders and yanking him down firmly and what, what – Sherlock doesn't know what's happening. John. Angry? No. Not John's angry face. John's Captain face. The one that makes something quiver deep down at the bottom of Sherlock's stomach, odd and hot and excited. Captain Watson. Pulling rank. Taking charge. God, he’s wanted, _wanted_ , for so long…

'Sherlock, you idiot, hold still,' John says. Sherlock realises he's flailing, arms and elbows and what are arms even,  _arms_.

John. John's eyes – warm, so warm. Looking at him. Affectionate. ' _Christ_ , Sherlock, calm down. Just – hold... still.'

And what is John – what? What. What is he doing.

Mouth.

Lips. Covering Sherlock's own lips, warm and  _moving_  gently and very soft, and whatever Sherlock had thought kissing John would be like, it wasn't like – like  _this_. Exploding stars. Bright colours. Where had the bright colours come from? Sunshine.

He can hear himself making little embarrassing noises. Kitten noises. Why kitten noises? Happy kitten John sunshine lips. Lips. Captain Watson. Hot heat lower intestine; lower lower lower. John: laughing and breaking lips away: no. Bad. John should bring his mouth back.

'Sherlock? You still with me, Sherlock?' Soft-edged John voice. Mmf.

'More,' Sherlock demands, stretching his neck out to try and reach John's lips again. ' _John_.'

'Easy, Sherlock. Okay?' John's hands, smoothing his shirt against his back. Gentle. Gentle is annoying, mostly, from most people. Patronising pity. But not from John. With John, gentleness is Captain Watson and being safe and not taking any shit from Sherlock, and Sherlock  _likes_  it, craves it.

Gentle. Gentle smoothing hands, lighting up swathes of Sherlock's skin. It's probably glowing, his skin under John's touch. Feels like it's glowing. Tingles.

No. Stupid.

_Fanciful_.

Sherlock says quickly, 'You do understand that this is merely a chemical response occurring in the brain, specifically in the raphe nucleus, ventral pallidum, nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental –'

'Shut up, Sherlock,' John says. 'No, really. Shut up.'

And he kisses him again. And again and again and again.

* * *

'You make kitten sounds,' John says, a little while later, when they’ve melted down onto the side of the bed, tangled up in each other’s arms. He noses into the crook of Sherlock's neck. 'Little sounds like a – goddamn –  _kitten_ , Sherlock, you ridiculous thing.' Now he's running his hand through Sherlock's hair, thumb stroking tenderly across his temple, into the delicate dip where a gun would go if one were to shoot themselves neatly. John wouldn't like that thought.

Feels good, John's thumb, John's hand in his hair. Good. So good.

'Notakitten,' Sherlock slurs, watching John through half-closed lids. John, warm and solid and cuddling against him.  _He_  looks like a kitten. His face is all soft and happy and relaxed. Hasn't looked like that for a long time, so long. Nice. Sherlock wants to touch. Tactile. Touching something he likes. Infantile reaction. He does it anyway.

John's face is fascinating, important,  _John_. Sherlock touches. He runs curious fingers over John's cheeks, short round nose. Soft eyelids. Sherlock's finger strokes the silky smiley wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Eyelashes: ticklish. Forehead, temple (never never  _never_ ).

John's smile. Sherlock touches it, touches the smile (the smile he made. Himself, Sherlock.) Feels it widen, as he presses experimentally at the soft line of John's lower lip.

Oh.

Wait. What – John's tongue.  _Licking._ Oh, God. John is licking on his, on Sherlock's fingers. Suckling warm wet firm oh oh _God_.

‘I – what, John please,  _John_ ,’ Sherlock says desperately, and he’s not at all sure what he’s asking for and everything is sort of whirling and he’s too hot and why has John stopped, John needs to go on doing that  _right now_. ‘John,  _John,_ please…’

But John shakes his head a little, eyes full of tenderness and apology. His fingers curls warmly around the back of Sherlock’s neck, his thumb stroking small soothing circles into his skin. His other hand comes up and gently pulls Sherlock’s fingers out of his mouth, positioning them on his shoulder instead.

‘Too fast,’ he says, and it’s not really a question. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, no, no,’ Sherlock mutters, because he wants everything, he wants it  _all_ , and he’s trembling, his fingers shaking and clenching over John’s shoulder, and he’s got that strange sick feeling where he’s not sure which way is up any more and he wants to crawl inside John’s skin and scream and also shoot a gun with a loud crack, and  _why is he still trembling_  because it’s  _not_ too fast, he wants and  _needs_  and.

‘Sherlock, hey. Shhh,’ John says, very gently. ‘Sherlock, slow down, breathe for me, okay? You’re hyperventilating. Breathe in – and out.’

Sherlock whimpers. He needs, he  _needs_ , and why does John want him to breathe, breathing is stupid. But John tugs him down, rearranges them both so that Sherlock’s head is nestled into John’s shoulder, and John curls around him and wraps both of his arms around Sherlock’s body, holding him there securely so that the hot sick dizziness recedes a little.

Sherlock feels John’s nose, John’s lips in his hair, and shivers all over. After a moment John speaks, his voice quiet and steadying, a low note of sound against Sherlock’s temple.

‘Sherlock,’ he murmurs. ‘Sherlock, for this,  _you need to trust me_. Can you trust me?’

His hand rubs in a slow circle on Sherlock’s back, and then another; Sherlock breathes, and focuses on the feeling of it, John’s hand. Short strong fingers. Broad square palm. Steady. Steady movements, calming. The feeling of unreality recedes further; there’s just John’s caressing hand, and the safe warmth of John’s arms around him, and John’s oddly gentle question humming softly in the air around them. _Can you trust me?_

Can Sherlock trust John? Of course. Of  _course_  he trusts John, has always trusted John, trusted him with his very life.

But this? Can he let go, cede control, trust John with all the mortifying vulnerability of his inexperience? Sherlock tucks his face closer into John’s neck and breathes in his warm John-scent, feels John’s lips laying tiny kisses on his temple, his hairline, and abruptly wants to burst into tears.

‘Yes,’ he mumbles into John’s skin, and John strokes the nape of his neck comfortingly.

‘We’re going to do this,’ John murmurs. ‘ _Christ._ I promise you we are definitely going to do everything you want. But slowly, okay?’ His lips are on Sherlock’s eyebrow, now, a soft firm press that feels _real_ , grounding, something to hold on to. Sherlock stays still, just breathing, feeling. Perhaps – it’s _just_ possible that he nestles a little bit into John’s arms.

John’s lips trail to the corner of Sherlock’s eye, before he speaks again, his voice somehow _aching_ , the words buzzing softly against Sherlock’s skin. ‘God, Sherlock, I know – I know how long we’ve – how long _you’ve_ waited. And. And I don’t want to mess this up. I’ve done so much of everything _wrong._ So wrong.’ John takes a deep breath, shifting so that his head’s bowed over Sherlock’s, his face pressing into Sherlock’s hair. ‘You mean _so much_ , so _bloody much_ to me, and I. I, what I did…’

‘Don’t,’ Sherlock mumbles. ‘Don’t, please. John.’ He fumbles a hand up to find John’s hair, John’s face, to touch, to take care of John, and his fingers slip on wetness. John – John is crying. _Crying!_

‘I’m sorry.’ John’s voice cracks. ‘I’m so, so sorry. _God_ , Sherlock, what I _did_. You should kick me – out of the house, you should…’

‘No, no, _no,_ John, never, how could you say that,’ Sherlock says frantically. He sits up and snatches urgently at John, winding his arms around John’s body. ‘No, I – I _love_ you, I would _never…_ ’

John makes a little snuffling sound, partway between a laugh and a sob. ‘I know,’ he says, ‘of course you – wouldn’t, you’re a really _bloody goddamn_ good person and don’t – don’t – deserve it.’ He scrubs his face with his hands, choking back a little hitching breath.

Sherlock pushes John’s hands away from his face, because John, John is labouring under a _serious misapprehension_ that needs to be fixed right now.

‘No,’ he corrects, ‘no, John, I’m really not a good person. I’m a high-functioning – ’

John’s whole body tenses in a single second. Then he’s throwing his head up, glaring at Sherlock, the edges of his eyes reddened. ‘ _Bullshit!’_

Sherlock blinks, wary for a moment. But John’s hands are on him, holding his shoulders, and John says, a bit quieter, ‘Bloody _bullshit_ , Sherlock. You were _never_ a sociopath, high-functioning or otherwise, you hear me? _Never_.’ And then he yanks Sherlock down, and his mouth crashes hot and forceful and urgent against Sherlock’s, kissing fiercely for a few seconds, and –  what. That. That was not expected. Sherlock’s whole body is singing, fizzing, but then John pulls back, panting a little.

‘I’m never going to stop telling you that until you believe it,’ he says ferociously. ‘You’re the _best_ person I’ve ever known, and I love you so goddamn much, and you love me back, God knows why, and _you are not a bloody sociopath._ ’

Then John’s arms come around Sherlock again, much more gently than Sherlock expects, John’s hands smoothing and stroking and rubbing circles in Sherlock’s shoulders. Sherlock squeezes him back, loving him: _his_ John, somehow, impossibly, in his arms. And John presses his forehead against Sherlock’s shoulder, and then he’s shaking a bit with wobbly broken laughter.

Sherlock bends his head and murmurs into John’s ear, ‘Salty _language_ , Captain Watson,’ just to see what John will say.

And suddenly they’re laughing, both of them, deep and helpless, clutching onto each other’s shirts with their hands, and Sherlock sniffle-hiccups and realises he’s crying at the same time.

It’s just – he’s so happy, so very, very _happy_ ; and he thinks suddenly that this, _this_ is what it will be for the rest of his life – the rest of _their_ life. John and Sherlock, the two of them against the world, laughing and crying and quite probably fighting sometimes, sharing the burden of their demons and traumas and difficulties, and _living_ _life_ together, always.

He looks down and meets John’s eyes, crinkled with laughter and glossed with tears, full of something huge and glorious and wonderful. It’s _love_ , Sherlock thinks, that look in John’s eyes, _love_ , so much more than just a chemical reaction, and he knows John sees it mirrored in Sherlock’s own eyes – his love, and the long years they will have together, stretching out like a shining road ahead of them.

And Sherlock smiles damply at John and sniffles and bends his neck to kiss him, sweet and a little shy and _perfect_ ; and John – John kisses him back, and he tastes like smiling tears and joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment in the box... and also, thoughts on another chapter? I'm wondering about something short and domestic and very fluffy to finish things off. :')


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